CHAPTER XH 



INDIAN CORN AND THE SORGHUMS FOR FORAGE 



I. INDIAN CORN 



Indian corn, maize, is the imperial agricultural plant of America. 

 This giant annual grass reaches a height of from 7 to 15 feet in 4 or 

 5 months' growth, producing under favorable conditions from 10 to 20 

 tons of green forage per acre, containing from 4,000 to 10,000 Ibs. of 

 dry matter. When grown in a dense mass but little seed forms, and we 

 have a rank grass which cures into a bright, nutritious, coarse hay. If 

 the plants grow some distance apart, a large yield of grain results, with 

 excellent forage as a secondary product. Were a seedsman to advertise 

 Indian corn by a new name, recounting its actual merits while ingeniously 

 concealing its identity, either his claims would be discredited or he would 

 have an unlimited demand for the seed of this supposed novelty. 



In Chapter I the studies on the composition of the growing Indian 

 corn plant are given at length to illustrate and fix in mind the manner 

 in which plants grow and elaborate food for animals. The student 

 should turn to that most helpful presentation and carefully review 

 what it teaches. This done, he is in position to proceed with the further 

 study of the maize plant here set forth. (The importance of corn as a 

 cereal has already been discussed in Chapter IX.) 



293. Corn as a forage plant. The entire fresh green corn plant may 

 be fed as a soiling crop, it may be ensiled, the crop may be cut and cured 

 as fodder corn, or the grain may be removed and the remaining stover 

 used for feed. As is later shown (296), ensiling is by far the most 

 satisfactory means of preserving the entire crop as forage. 



The term fodder corn or corn fodder is applied to corn plants, either 

 fresh or dry, which have been grown primarily for forage, and from 

 which the ears, if they carry any, have not been removed. Shock corn 

 and bundle corn are terms applied to fodder corn which carries much 

 grain, but which is fed without husking. Corn stover is the term 

 applied to cured shock corn from which the ears have been removed. 

 Fodder corn or corn fodder, then, is the fresh or cured corn plant which 

 has been grown for forage, with all the ears, if any, originally produced. 

 Stover is cured shock corn minus the ears. Similarly, the terms kafir 

 fodder, milo stover, etc., are employed in speaking of the forages from 

 the various grain sorghums. 



Like the corn grain, corn forage is low in crude protein compared 

 with carbohydrates and fat. As shown in Appendix Table III, the 

 nutritive ratio of corn silage is 1 :15.1, and that of fodder corn 1 :15.7 



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